Upgraded BMW i3 Deliveries Beginning Soon
Following the start of production back in July, BMW will soon begin deliveries of the new i3s featuring increased battery pack sizes — allowing for an NEDC-certified range of more than 300 kilometers (185 miles) per full charge.
“NEDC-certified” doesn’t necessarily mean that much, of course — real-world range estimates put the new BMW i3’s range somewhere around 200 kilometers (125 miles) per full charge. The new i3s should still prove considerably more useful than the first-gen i3s, though, thanks to the increased range. The better batteries allow for an expansion of potential customers whose needs can be met with 200 km but not 130 km of range.
As far as context goes, Push EVs provided some interesting comments on the competition between Nissan and BMW: “Carlos Ghosn, CEO of the Renault-Nissan and now Mitsubishi Alliance considers BMW his most direct competitor and with the introduction of the upgraded BMW i3, BMW proved he’s right. Tesla Motors is in another level, by competing with high performance cars and Volkswagen talks a lot about electric cars but acts very slow.”
This matches with (and was maybe stimulated by) what CleanTechnica & EV Obsession director and chief editor Zach Shahan heard approximately one year ago from a Nissan insider — that the range of the LEAF was increasing to ~130 miles in 2017 and ~150 miles in 2018 (EPA ratings) in response to competition from BMW.
Continuing: “It’s time for the Alliance (to) release the 40 kWh batteries for the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe R400. This way the cars can be advertised with 400 km NEDC range and leave BMW behind again. In (recent) days the information I got not only reinforces the belief that the Leaf and the Zoe are about to get battery upgrades very soon, but also that 40 kWh is the usable battery capacity, the total capacity should be 45-46 kWh, not as much as the 48 kWh I thought last year, but still great. Nissan will start to advertise only the usable battery capacity as Renault already does. The Leaf will also suffer a minor facelift and look more like the Pulsar. Better aesthetics and aerodynamics.”
Interesting thoughts. I’m skeptical that the recent changes to the BMW i3 will be enough to allow it to compete with Nissan’s upcoming offerings, though. The German company doesn’t seem to be taking the rapidly growing electric vehicle market as seriously as it should. The i3 price is still well above the price of the Leaf, and even above the coming 200-mile Chevy Bolt and 215-mile Tesla Model 3.
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